Tighter security in Kidapawan for centennial celebration

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Authorities on Monday started implementing tighter security measures around the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City to ensure a peaceful celebration of North Cotabato’s 100th founding anniversary on September 1.

Six hundred policemen and three platoons of Army combatants have been mobilized for the event, according to Senior Inspector Ramel Hojilla, deputy director for operations of the North Cotabato provincial police.

The province's centennial anniversary to coincide with the yearly "Kalivungan Festival" from August 25 to September 1, will be capped off with a street dancing parade, a paramotor gliding show, a bowling tournament, a musical concert, and other cultural programs organized by the office of Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza.

Kalivungan is a generic term, in dialects of most non-Moro indigenous tribes in the province, which may mean either as a special tribal gathering, or a thanksgiving communal activity, or an inter-tribal conclave where traditional leaders discuss community concerns.

Hojilla said they will disallow carrying of backpacks inside the provincial capitol compound in Barangay Amas in Kidapawan City starting August 21, as part of their security measures.

"Vehicles entering the capitol compound will be subjected to rigid inspections too," Hojilla said.

Bomb-sniffing dogs and uniformed ordnance experts will also be tapped to help secure the venue of the Kalivungan festivities, he added.

Josephine Abellana, tourism officer of the provincial government, said Mendoza’s office allocated funds for North Cotabato’s centennial anniversary celebration.

While geographically known as North Cotabato, the official administrative name of the province is only "Cotabato," whose 17 towns and capital, Kidapawan City, originally belonged the American-era “Cotabato Empire Province.”

The vast empire province, established on Sept. 1, 1914, then covered the areas that are now North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, and Sarangani provinces, and the chartered cities of Kidapawan, Cotabato, Koronadal, Tacurong, and General Santos.

Despite the historical and geographical evolution the empire province had gone through, North Cotabato, a major agricultural hub in Region 12, retained September 1, 1914 as the date for its founding anniversary.

Brig. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said he had ordered the Army’s 602nd Brigade, which has jurisdiction over several North Cotabato towns, to help ensure the safety of guests and participants to the Kalivungan Festival.

Representatives of the 6th Infantry Division will attend the event, according to Pangilinan.